Pages

Monday, April 30, 2012

New Beginnings

Happy Monday! Or is that an oxymoron?

Today is my first week working at the fertility clinic. I am very excited despite things moving very slowly. The clinic has just instituted the policy that new patients must attend a counselling session, so I suspect it may take a while to implement the program and really get it up and running. At least I get to be involved in it's development.

Fortunately, this exciting week was proceeded by a relatively sane, and actually quite lovely family weekend. Admittedly it started off a bit rocky: Friday I visited a friend while Adam took the girls to his parents' place for dinner. When they got home Little A was deliriously tired but was refusing to go to bed which led to a lot of drama. At one point she defeated the door-knob child proofer and opened her bedroom door herself and came out to the hall in defiance. Saturday morning began equally shaky with Little A refusing to eat her requested PB&H sandwich because I cut the bread wrong. Big A also woke up at 6:15am just in time to watch me do my Insanity cardio DVD. Nothing like sweating your butt off to commentary such as, "Mommy, that woman on the tv is jumping higher than you." "Can't you go any faster?" "What you are doing is so easy!"

Our little early bird seems to be back into the habit of getting up at the crack of dawn (the last few months she settled into a 7am-ish wake-up time). This morning it was 5:45am. Perfect, just what I need as life gets busier and I start a new job: my morning me-time, GONE!

Anyways, following Saturdays early morning challenges things improved. We took the girls to the zoo, which was Little A's first visit, and we all had a great time. It went much better than the one time we took Big A and she got bored and wanted to leave after 30 minutes. We got almost 2 hours out of it before the girls began whining for lunch. We actually managed to find them relatively healthy food to eat at the zoo (turkey and cheese wrap, carrots and dip, fresh fruit) before we left and went to Costco. Both girls went to bed early and inspite of being exhausted from a busy day (we were out from about 9:45am until almost 4pm), they were in good spirits and cooperative right up until they went to sleep.

Sunday Little A went to my niece's birthday party while Big A was at Hebrew School and her Fit Kids program at the JCC and I was teaching my spin class. Even though Little A ran around for hours at the party and exhausted herself, she was still in a great mood when my in-laws brought her home. They were certain she would nap, but she was, of course, unwilling to even have quiet time in her room.

When Adam went off to his book club meeting at 2:30pm, Little A and I played in the kitchen and shared my lunch while Big A played Barbies quietly in her room. When Adam came home at 4pm, Big A was STILL in her room playing quietly and Little A was still in a good mood, although she was tired enough to need a tv break at this point. It is very rare for Big A to spend so much time playing by herself and for Little A to be in such a good mood for such a long period of time when she doesn't nap (which she never does anymore). I actually saw glimmers of the pre-terrible 2 Little A, who used to be so loving, happy and joyful all the time. We had so much fun playing together! I can't wait until she comes back to us for good...assuming that happens before she becomes a teen and decides she hates us all.

Unfortunately, Little A is actively resisting potty training. This might not bother me so much if she wasn't also refusing to walk around in a dirty diaper. Now, the minute she even pees, she wants us to change her IMMEDIATELY, no matter where we are or what we are doing. I suppose this may eventually work to our advantage in terms of convincing her to potty train, but right now it's just a major pain and she is stubbornly refusing to even go near the toilet or potty. I am going to speak with her daycare teachers this week and see what they suggest in terms of incentives...

At least I have my new career to focus on. I am so excited to get more deeply involved in the infertility world and will post more about my work in the future. I have submitted another abstract to the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society and hope to present it at their next conference in September. I am also doing some outreach activities for Infertility Awareness Week towards the end of May. I still might be barely bringing in any income (since graduating in December I've been seeing clients for counselling a few times a week (some fertility related, but most not), but haven't bothered to do much marketing for my private practice), but at least I am doing work that is meaningful and rewarding to me AND at least I am fortunate enough to be in a financial position to allow me to do this. Imagine, never dreading a Monday again because you actually love your work! I am one lucky girl!!